"When she will, she will, depend on't,And when she won't, she won't,And there's an end on't."
"When she will, she will, depend on't,And when she won't, she won't,And there's an end on't."
She glanced up and saw him pulling at the ends of his mustache with an injured air, and a dark frown on his brow.
"Why do you look so mad? I should think you would be glad I'm not going."
"I am vexed. I wasn't aware that I looked mad. In England we put mad people into insane asylums," he replied, rather stiffly.
"Thank you. I understand. Old England is giving Young America a rhetorical hint. Why do you look so vexed, then, Captain Lancaster?"
"Because there will be no end of a row in Lancaster Park when I go there, because you have not come with me."
"Will there, really?"
"Yes; and my aunt, Lady Lancaster, who has promised to give me all her money when she dies, will cut me off with a shilling because I have disobeyed her orders and disappointed Mrs. West."
The blue-gray eyes opened to their widest extent.
"No!" she said.
"Yes, indeed," he replied.
"Then she must be a very hard woman," said Miss West, in a decided tone.
"She is," he replied, laconically.
"You are certain that she would not give you the money?" anxiously.
"Quite certain," he answered.
"And—have you none of your own?"
"Only my pay in the army," he admitted, laughing within himself at her naïve curiosity.
"Is that much?" she went on, gravely.
"Enough to keep me in boots and hats," he answered, with an owl-like gravity.
"And this Lady Lancaster—your aunt—does she give you the rest?" persevered Leonora.
He did not want to be rude, but he burst out laughing. She looked up into the bright blue eyes and reddened warmly.
"I dare say you think me curious and ill-bred," she said.
"Oh, no, no, not at all. I am intensely flattered by the interest you take in my affairs."
"It is only because I do not want to be the means of your losing that money, if you want it. Do you?"
"Indeed I do. Anybody would be glad to have twenty thousand a year," he replied.
"So much as that? Then, of course, I must not be the cause of your losing it," said Leonora, gravely.
"Then you will go with me?" he cried, with quite a load lifted from his mind by her unexpected concession.
"Ye-es. I suppose I shall have to go," she answered.
"A thousand thanks. I thought you would relent," he said. "And will you be ready to sail with me to-morrow?"
"Oh, yes, quite ready. My trunks have been packed several weeks, and I have been only waiting for you to come," she answered, promptly.
And then she slipped her small hand into the folds of her dress and drew out a netted silk purse, through whose meshes he caught the glitter of gold pieces. She counted out a number of shining coins into his hand with quite a business-like air.
"That is the price of my ticket. Will you please buy it for me? I will have my luggage sent down all right," she said.
He took the money mechanically and rose, thinking this a dismissal. Then something that had been on his mind all the time rose to his lips.
"I want to ask a great favor of you, Miss West."
She looked at him with a slight air of wonder, and answered: "Yes."
"You will meet with my friend, Lieutenant De Vere, on board the steamer. He is a very nice youth indeed. He will be good friends with you directly."
"In-deed?" said Leonora, in a slow, inquiring voice that implied a distinct doubt on the subject.
"Yes, indeed. You need not look so incredulous. You will be sure to like him. The ladies all adore him."
She looked up at him with the dimples coming into roguish play around her mouth.
"And you wish to warn me not to fall a victim to his manifold perfections?" she said.
"Oh, dear, no, not at all. I never thought of such a thing. You see, Miss West, my friend intensely enjoys a joke."
"Yes?" she gazed at him with an air of thorough mystification.
"He intensely enjoys a joke," repeated Lancaster. "I want you to promise me now, upon your honor, that you will not tell him how unmercifully you quizzed me awhile ago. He would never have done chaffing me if he knew, and he would tell the whole regiment once we landed in England."
"Would they tease you much?" inquired Leonora, highly interested.
"Unbearably," he replied.
"They shall not know, then," she answered, promptly. "I will not tell your friend about it."
"Nor any one?" he entreated.
"Certainly not," she answered, soothingly, and involuntarily he caught her hand and pressed it a moment in his own, not displeased to see that she blushed as she drew it hastily away.
He went away, and when he looked at his watch outside the door he was honestly surprised.
"Two hours! I really do not know how the time went," he said to himself.
When he went back to his hotel he found De Vere in a state of surprise, too.
"You have been gone almost three hours," he said. "Did you find the baby?"
"Yes, I found it," he replied, carelessly.
"Was it well? Shall we have the pleasure of its company to-morrow?" pursued the lieutenant.
"Yes, it was well, but it is a spoiled child. I am afraid we shall find it a source of trouble to us," replied Captain Lancaster, smiling to himself at the surprise and delight in store for De Vere to-morrow, when he should find that it was a beautiful young girl instead of a cross baby who was to be theircompagnon du voyageto England.
Lancaster electrified his friend next morning by informing him that he must get their traps aboard the steamer himself, as he would not have time to attend to his own affairs, having some commissions to execute for Miss West.
"The nursing-bottles and the cans of condensed milk, you know," he said, with a mischievous laugh, and De Vere stared.
"I should think the nurse would attend to that," he said.
"Nurses are forgetful, and I wish everything to be all right, you know," replied his friend; "so I shall see to everything myself."
"Well, you will have plenty of time to do so. We do not sail until four o'clock."
"Well, I shall have plenty to do in the meantime, so you need not wait for me, Harry. You may just go aboardat any time you like. I shall take a carriage and call for the baby on my way down."
"You are getting very kind all at once," De Vere said, carelessly.
"Yes, I mean to be. Having undertaken it, I mean to see the poor little thing safely through."
"Well, I wish you success," De Vere replied, as he lighted a fresh cigar and turned away.
The tickets and state-rooms had already been secured, and Lancaster hurried down-town, intent on securing all the comforts possible for his fair charge, who had suddenly grown very interesting in his eyes. He bought a steamer-chair, some warm rugs, and a gayly colored Oriental wrap that was both pretty and comfortable. Then he provided himself with some nice novels and poems and books of travel. When he had provided everything he could think of that was conducive to a lady's comfort, he repaired to a florist's and selected an elegant and costly bouquet.
"I have noticed that ladies always like a bunch of flowers when they are traveling," he said to himself. "But what will De Vere say to such reckless extravagance on my part?"
He smiled to himself, thinking how the young lieutenant would chaff.
"Anyway, I shall have got the start of him," he thought. "He will be on thequi vivefor a flirtation with Leonora West."
Then he looked at his watch and found that he had consumed so much time in making his purchases that he only had time to take a carriage and call for his charge. Havingsent all his purchases to the steamer, and being encumbered with nothing but the flowers, he made all haste to execute his last and pleasantest task—accompanying Miss West to the steamer on which they were to embark.
"Drive fast," he said to the man on the box; and when they paused before the genteel boarding-house where he had made Miss West's acquaintance the day before, he jumped out with alacrity and ran up the steps.
The door was opened by the simpering maid of the day before who had giggled at his ridiculous mistake. He could not help coloring at the remembrance as he met her recognizing smiles, a little tinctured with surprise.
He assumed an air of coldness and hauteur, thinking to freeze her into propriety.
"I have called for Miss West to take her to the steamer. Will you please see if she is ready?"
"Oh, Lor', sir!" tittered the maid.
"I have called for Miss West," he repeated, more sternly. "Can you inform me if she is ready?"
The maid bridled resentfully at his impatient air.
"Why, lawk a mercy, she was ready ages ago, mister!" she said, tartly.
"Then ask her to come out, if you please. We have barely half an hour to go on board," he said, glancing hurriedly at his watch.
"I can't ask her. She is not here," was the answer.
"Not here? then where—" he began, but the pert maid interrupted him:
"Lor', sir, Miss West went down to the steamer two hours ago."
An audible titter accompanied the information.
Lancaster bounded down the steps without a word, sprung into his carriage, and slammed the door with a vim.
"Drive down to the steamer just as fast as you can, coachman!" he hallooed, sharply.
De Vere stared in wonder when his friend scrambled up the plank alone with his beautiful bouquet. He was not a minute too soon, for in an instant the gang-plank was hauled in, and they were outward bound on the dark-blue sea.
"Halloo!" shouted the lieutenant, sauntering up; "where's the precious babe?"
His air of unfeigned surprise was most exasperating to Lancaster in his disappointed mood. He was about to exclaim, "Hang the babe!" but recollected himself just in time to glance around at the passengers on deck. No, she was not there, the pretty American maid who was so gracefully independent. "Gone to her state-room, probably," he thought, with profound chagrin, and leaning over the railing, pitched his fragrant exotics impulsively into the sea.
"So much for my foolish gallantry to Mrs. West's niece," he said to himself, hotly.
Raising his eyes then, he met De Vere's stare of wonder.
"Have you gone clean daft, my dear captain?" inquired he.
"I don't know why you should think so," said Lancaster, nettled.
"From your looks, man. You come flying up the gang-way, breathless, and when I ask you a question you stare around distractedly, and run to the railing to pitch over one of the sweetest bouquets I ever laid eyes on. Now, what am I to think of you, really?"
He laughed, and Lancaster, trampling his vexation under-foot, laughed too. He was vexed with himself that he had let Leonora West put him out so.
"I beg your pardon for my rudeness," he said. "I will explain. You see, I was so busy all day that I only had time at the last to jump into a carriage and call for Miss West. Then I was detained by an impertinent servant who, after ten minutes of stupid jargon, told me that my charge had gone down to the steamer two hours before. So then we had not a minute to spare, and of course I was flurried when I came aboard."
"But the bouquet?" suggested De Vere, curiously.
"Oh, I bought that for my charge," replied Lancaster, airily.
"Rank extravagance! And didn't you know more about the tastes of babies than that, my dear fellow? A rattle would have been a more appropriate and pleasing selection. You know what the poet says:
"'Pleased with a rattle,Tickled with a straw.'"
"'Pleased with a rattle,Tickled with a straw.'"
"Yes, I remembered that just as I came aboard, and I was so vexed at my foolish bouquet that I tossed it overboard," Lancaster replied, with the utmost coolness.
He sat down, lighted a weed, and leaning over the rail, watched the deep, white furrows cut in the heaving sea by the bounding ship. His thoughts reverted provokingly to Leonora West.
"What is she doing? Will she come on deck this evening? Did she think I would not call for her, or did she come down first with malice prepense?" he asked himself, one question after another revolving busily through his brain.
Lieutenant De Vere's gay voice jarred suddenly on his musings:
"Tell you what, old fellow, you missed something by not coming aboard with me. I formed a charming acquaintance this afternoon."
"Eh, what?"—the captain roused himself with a start.
"I formed a charming acquaintance on board ship this afternoon. Prettiest girl in America—England, either, I should say."
A swift suspicion darted into Lancaster's mind.
"Ah, indeed?" he said. "What is the divinity's name?"
"I have not found out yet," confessed the lieutenant.
"Ah! then your boasted acquaintance did not progress very far," chaffingly.
"No; but I rely on time to develop it. We shall be on board steamer ten days together. I shall certainly find out my fair unknown in all that time," confidently.
Lancaster frowned slightly with that lurking suspicion yet in his mind.
"Oh, you needn't look so indifferent!" cried De Vere.
"You would have lost your head over her, too, old man. Such a face, such a voice, such an enchanting glance from the sweetest eyes ever seen!"
"And such a goddess deigned to speak to you?" sarcastically.
"Yes. Shall I tell you all about it? I'm dying to talk to some one about her!"
"Don't die, then. I would rather be bored with your story than have to carry your corpse home to the regiment."
"It was this way, then: I wasennuyéat the hotel, so I came on board early with my traps—as early as one o'clock. It was about two, I think, when she came—lady and gentleman with her."
"Oh!"
"Yes, and shawls—bags, books, bouquets—the three B's—ad infinitum. She had a dark veil over her face. Her friends bade her good-bye—lady kissed her with enthusiasm—then they gave her the shawls and three B's they had helped carry, and went away."
"Who went away?"
"The lady and gentleman went away. If you had been listening half-way to my story, Lancaster, you would have understood what I said."
"Don't be offended. I am giving you my strictest attention. Go on, please."
"She gathered all her things in her arms—she should have had a maid, really—and began to trip across the deck. Then the wind—bless its viewless fingers whirled off her veil and tossed it in the air."
"Fortunate!" muttered Lancaster.
"Yes, wasn't it?" cried De Vere, in a lively tone. "So I gave chase to the bit of gossamer and captured it just as it was sailing skyward. I carried it back to her, and lo! a face—well, wait until you see her, that's all."
"Is that the end of the story?" queried Lancaster, disappointed.
"Not yet. Well, it was the sweetest face in the world. A real pink and white; eyes that were gray, but looked black because the lashes were so long and shady. Pouting lips, waving bangs, just the loveliest shade of chestnut. Imagine what I felt when this lovely girl thanked me in a voice as sweet as a sugar-plum, and gave me her things to hold while she tied on her veil again."
"I hope you did not let her see how moonstruck you were on the instant."
"I don't know. I'm afraid she did," dubiously. "You see, I was so taken by surprise I had not my wits about me. I talked to her quite idiotically—told her I would not have restored the veil had I known she would hide that face with it again."
"And she?" asked Lancaster, with a restless movement.
"Oh, she colored and looked quite vexed a moment. Then she asked me, quite coolly, if my keeper was on board."
There was a minute's silence. Lancaster's broad shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.
"So I begged a thousand pardons," De Vere continued, after a minute's thoughtful rumination, "and I found her a seat and brought the chamber-maid to take herthings and show her her state-room; so she could not choose but forgive me, and I talked to her a minute."
"And told her all about yourself in a breath," laughed the captain.
"No; I would have done it, but she did not stop long enough to hear me. I asked her if she was going to cross the 'big pond' all alone by herself, as Pat would say, and she laughed very much and said no; she was to have two chaperons. Then she asked me was I going, too. I said yes, and was fumbling for my card-case when the chamber-maid whisked her away from me. But to-morrow I shall—Oh, oh! Lancaster," in a suppressed tone of ecstasy, "there she is now!"
Lancaster dropped his cigar into the heaving waves and turned his head. He saw a lissom, graceful figure coming unsteadily across the heaving deck—Leonora West!
Leonora West, even more fair and bonny looking than yesterday, in a jersey waist and a black-kilted skirt just short enough to show the arched instep of an exquisite foot in a dainty buttoned boot. She carried her veil on her arm now, and wore a big black hat on her head, under which all her wealth of curling chestnut hair waved loosely to her perfect waist. The fair "innocent-arch" face looked as fresh as a rose and beamed with gentleness and good nature.
Captain Lancaster rose up deliberately, and disregarding his friend's amazement, went forward to meet her.
"Miss West, the deck is rather unsteady. Will you honor me by taking my arm?" he said, bowing before her with elaborate politeness.
Lieutenant De Vere gazed in the most unfeigned astonishment, not to say dismay, at the strange and unexpected sight of Captain Lancaster coolly leading the unknown beauty across the unsteady deck. As he said of himself when relating it afterward, he might have been "knocked down with a feather."
And when he saw that they were coming straight toward him, and that Lancaster had quite an air of proprietorship, and that the girl was looking up with an arch smile at him, he was more astonished than ever, he was almost stupefied with amazement. Did Lancaster know her, really? And why had he kept it to himself, selfish fellow?
And then he was overpoweringly conscious that they had come up to him. He struggled to his feet and came near falling back over the railing into the ocean, out of sheer wrath, for just then Captain Lancaster said, with just a touch of raillery in his tone:
"Miss West, permit me to present my friend, Lieutenant De Vere."
"Lancaster knew her all the while, and he has been chaffing me all this time," flashed angrily through De Vere's mind but he suppressed his rising chagrin and said, with his most elaborate bow:
"I am most happy to know your name, Miss West. I have been longing to know it ever since I met you this afternoon."
"What audacity!" thought Lancaster to himself, with a frown that only grew darker as the girl replied, gayly:
"And I am very glad to know that you are Captain Lancaster's friend. You will help to amuse me on the way over."
She sat down between them, Lancaster on one hand, De Vere on the other. The lieutenant looked across the bright, sparkling young face at his friend.
"Do you mean to tell me that this isthebaby?" pointedly.
"Yes."
"But, how—" pausing helplessly.
Lancaster laughed, and Leonora joined her musical treble to his.
"You see, De Vere, there was a mistake all around," he said. "I found out yesterday that the baby existed only in our imaginations."
"You might have told me," De Vere muttered, reproachfully.
"I was reserving a pleasant surprise for you to-day," Lancaster rejoined.
Leonora turned her bright eyes up to his face.
"When did you come aboard?" she inquired, naïvely.
"At the last moment," he replied, rather coldly.
"You were detained?"
"Yes," dryly.
A sudden light broke over De Vere's mind. He laughed provokingly.
"Miss West, would you like to know what detained him?" he inquired.
"Yes," she replied.
"He went up to Blank Street, to fetch you," laughing.
"No?"
"Yes, indeed. Ask him, if you doubt me."
She looked around at Lancaster. There was a flush on his face, a frown between his eyebrows.
"You did not, really, did you?" she asked, naïvely.
"I did," curtly.
"Don't tease him about it. He was furiously angry because you ran away and came by yourself," said De Vere. He was beginning to turn the tables on Lancaster now, and he enjoyed it immensely.
"But I did not come by myself. My friends where I boarded—Mrs. Norton and her husband—came with me. I did not know Captain Lancaster was coming for me. If I had known I should have waited," apologetically.
"You do not know what you missed by not waiting," said De Vere. "When Lancaster came aboard he had a great big hot-house bouquet."
"And I do so love flowers," said Leonora, looking round expectantly at the captain.
"Ah, you needn't look round at him now. It is too late," said De Vere, wickedly. "When he came scrambling up the gang-plank, at the last moment, and didn't see you anywhere on deck, he was so overcome by his disappointment, to use the mildest phrase, that he threw the beautiful bouquet out into the sea."
"Ah! you did not, really, did you, Captain Lancaster?" exclaimed Leonora, regretfully.
"Yes; the flowers were beginning to droop," he replied, fibbing unblushingly; and then he arose and walked away from them, too much exasperated at De Vere's chaff to endure his proximity a minute longer.
He crossed over to the other side of the deck and stood there with his face turned from them, gazing out at the beautiful, foam-capped billows of old ocean with the golden track of the sunset shining far across the waves. There came to him suddenly the remembrance that he was homeward bound.
He was homeward bound. In a few days, or weeks at most, he should be at home; he should be at Lancaster Park; he should meet the girl his vixenish aunt had chosen for his future bride. He wondered vaguely what she would be like—pretty, he hoped; as pretty as—yes, as pretty as—Leonora West.
Her clear, sweet voice floated across the deck, the words plainly audible.
"You are both soldiers. How pleasant! I do so adore soldiers."
"You make me very happy, Miss West," cried De Vere, sentimentally, with his hand upon his heart.
"But not," continued Leonora, with a careless glance at him, "not in their ordinary clothes, you understand, Lieutenant De Vere. It is the uniform that delights me. I think it is just too lovely for anything."
De Vere, crushed to the earth for a moment, hastily rallied himself.
"I would give the half of my kingdom," he said, "if only I had gone traveling in my red coat."
"I wish you had," she replied. "But some day—afterwe get to England, I mean—you will let me see you in it, won't you?"
"Every day, if you like. I shall only be too happy," vivaciously.
"I'll be shot if you shall have an invitation to Lancaster Park, you popinjay!" Lancaster muttered to himself, in unreasonable irritation.
He moved away a little further from them, out of earshot of their talk, but he could not as easily divert his thoughts from them.
"How silly people can be upon occasion!" he thought. "How dare he get up a flirtation with Mrs. West's niece? She is wholly out of his sphere. Once she gets to England, I dare swear he will never be permitted to lay eyes on her again. He shall not make a fool of the child. She is but a child, and ignorant of those laws of caste that will trammel Mrs. West's niece in England. I will speak to him."
That night when the girl had gone to her state-room, and the two men were alone on deck smoking their cigars in the soft spring moonlight, Lancaster said, rather diffidently:
"Oh, I say, De Vere, weren't you going the pace rather strong this evening?"
"Eh?" said the lieutenant.
"I say you oughtn't to try to flirt with little Leonora West. You were saying no end of soft things to her thisevening. It isn't right. She's in my care, and I can't see her harmed without a word."
"Harmed? Why, what the deuce are you hinting at, Lancaster?" his friend demanded, hotly.
"Nothing to make you fly into a temper, Harry," Lancaster answered, gravely. "Nothing but what is done every day by idle, rich men—winning an innocent, fresh young heart in a careless flirtation, and then leaving it to break."
De Vere dropped his fine Havana into the waves and looked around.
"Look here, Lancaster," he said, "tell me one thing. Do you want Miss West for yourself?"
"I don't understand you," haughtily, with a hot flush mounting to his brow.
"I mean you are warning me off because you're in love with the little thing yourself? Do you want to win her—to make her my lady?"
"What then?" inquired Lancaster, moodily.
"Why, then, I only want an equal chance with you, that's all—a fair field and no favor."
They gazed at each other in silence a moment. Lancaster said then, with something like surprise:
"Are you in earnest?"
"Never more so in my life."
"Have you remembered that your family will consider it amésalliance?"
"I am independent of my family. I have ten thousand a year of my own, and am the heir to a baronetcy."
"But you are rash, De Vere. You never saw Leonora West until to-day. What do you know of her?"
"I know that she is the fairest, most fascinating creature I ever met, and that she has carried my heart by storm. I know that if she is to be won by mortal man, that man shall be Harry De Vere!" cried the young soldier, enthusiastically.
There was silence again. The great ship rose and fell with the heaving of the waves, and it seemed to Lancaster that its labored efforts were like the throbbing of a heart in pain. What was the matter with him? He shook off angrily the trance that held him.
"Since you mean so well, I wish you success," he said.
"Thanks, old fellow. I thought at first—" said De Vere, then paused.
"Thought—what?" impatiently.
"That you were—jealous, that you wanted her for yourself."
"Pshaw! My future is already cut and dried," bitterly.
"A promising one, too: twenty thousand a year, a wife already picked out for you—high-born and beautiful, of course. Even Lady Lancaster couldn't have the impertinence to select any other for Lord Lancaster."
"Oh, by the bye," Lancaster said, with sudden eagerness.
"Well?"
"Do me this favor: don't rehearse any of my family history to Miss West—the barren title, the picked-out bride, and—the rest of it."
"Certainly not. But of course she will know once she gets to England."
"At least she need not know sooner," Lancaster replied.
"No," assented De Vere; and then he asked thoughtfully. "Is it true that her aunt is the housekeeper at Lancaster Park?"
"That is what my aunt says in her letter."
"And yet she—my little beauty—does not look lowly born."
"No; her mother was an American, you know. They—the Americans—all claim to be nobly born, I believe. They recognize no such caste distinctions as we do. Miss West bears a patent of nobility in her face," said Lancaster, kindly.
"Does she not, the little darling? What a sweet good nature beams in her little face. And, after all, it is our own poet laureate who says:
"'Howe'er it be, it seems to me,'Tis only noble to be good:Kind hearts are more than coronets,And simple faith than Norman blood.'"
"'Howe'er it be, it seems to me,'Tis only noble to be good:Kind hearts are more than coronets,And simple faith than Norman blood.'"
"Yet I think you will find it hard to bring the rest of the De Veres to subscribe to Tennyson's verse," Lancaster said, anxiously.
"They will e'en have to. I shall please myself, if I can—mark that, lad. So you needn't scold any more, old fellow, for I am in dead earnest to make Leonora Mrs. H. De Vere," laughed the young soldier.
"You are the arbiter of your own destiny. Enviable fellow!" grumbled Lancaster.
"I never knew what a lucky fellow I was until now," agreed De Vere. "It was fortunate for me that I had a bachelor uncle in trade, and he left me his fortune whenhe died. I can snap my fingers at my family if they cut up about my choice."
"Yes," Lancaster said, dryly.
"Ah, you are just thinking to yourself what a dude I am!" exclaimed De Vere, suddenly. "Here I am talking so confidentially about my choice, when I do not even know if she will look at me. What do you think about it, eh? Do I stand any chance with her?"
"If she were a society girl, I should say that you stood no chance of being refused. No girl who had been properly educated by Madame Fashion would say no to ten thousand a year and a title in prospective," Lancaster replied, with conviction.
"You are putting my personal attractions quite out of the question," said De Vere, chagrined.
"Because they are quite secondary to your more solid recommendations," sarcastically.
"And, after all, you have not said what you think about my chances with Miss West."
"I do not know what to say, because I do not at all understand her. Yet if she is poor, as of course she must be, and being lowly born, as we know, she could not do better than take you, if she is worldly wise."
"You talk about my worldly advantages very cynically, Lancaster. Do you not think that I might be loved for myself?" inquired De Vere, pulling at his dark mustache vexedly, and wondering if he (Lancaster) believed himself to be the only handsome man in the world.
"Why, yes, of course. You're not bad looking. You have the smallest foot in the regiment, they say, and thewhitest hand, and your mustache is superb," Lancaster replied, laughing, for from his superb size and manly beauty he rather despised small dandies; and De Vere, feeling snubbed, he scarcely knew why, retired within himself after the dignified reply:
"I humbly thank you, Captain Lancaster; but I was not fishing for such weak compliments."
Miss West accepted the steamer-chair, the rugs, the wraps, and the books with unfeigned pleasure, and buried herself in the volumes with a pertinacity that was discouraging to her ardent wooer. She wearied of the blue sky and the blue ocean, the everlasting roll of the ship, the faces of her fellow-voyagers, of everything, as she averred, but the books. They had a fair and prosperous journey, and every sunny day Leonora might be seen on deck, but whether walking or sitting, she had always a book in her hand in whose pages she persistently buried herself at the approach of any one with whom she was disinclined to talk. In this discouraging state of things De Vere's wooing sped but slowly, and Lancaster's acquaintanceship progressed no further than a ceremonious "Good-morning," "Good-evening," "Can I be of any service to you?" and similar stilted salutations, to all of which Leonora replied with a quietness and constraint that put a check on further conversation. No one could complain that she gave any trouble; she was quiet, courteous, and gentle, and there were two pairs of eyes that followed thedemure, black-robed figure everywhere upon the deck, and the owners of the eyes wished, perhaps, that she would call on them for more attention, more services, so oblivious did she seem of the fact that they waited assiduously upon her lightest command.
"She is not a little flirt, as I thought at first, seeing her with De Vere," the captain said to himself. "She is a clever little girl who is better pleased with the thoughts of clever writers than the society of two great, trifling fellows such as De Vere and myself. I applaud her taste."
All the same, he would have been pleased if the pretty face had lighted sometimes at his coming, if she had seemed to care for talking to him, if she had even asked him any questions about where she was going. But she did not manifest any curiosity on the subject. She was a constrained, chilly little companion always to him. It chagrined him to see that she was more at her ease with De Vere than with him. Once or twice she unbent from her lofty height with the lieutenant, smiled, chatted, even sang to him by moonlight, one night, in a voice as sweet as her face. But she was very shy, very quiet with the man whose business it was to convey her to England. She tried faithfully to be as little of "a bore and nuisance" as possible.
It did not matter; indeed, it was much better so, he told himself, and yet he chafed sometimes under her peculiar manner. He did not like to be treated wholly with indifference, did not like to be entirely ignored, as if she had forgotten him completely.
So one day when De Vere lolled in his state-room, hewent and stood behind her chair where she sat reading. It was one of the poets of his own land whose book she held in her hand, and the fact emboldened him to say:
"You like English authors, Miss West. Do you think you shall like England?"
She lifted the blue-gray eyes calmly to his face.
"No," she replied, concisely.
He flushed a little. It was his own native land. He did not like to hear her say she should not like it.
"That is a pity, since you are going to make your home there," he said.
"I am not at all sure of that," she answered, putting her white forefinger between the pages of her book, and turning squarely round to look at him as he talked. "Perhaps if I can not bring myself to like England, I may persuade my aunt to come to America with me."
"Lady Lancaster would die of chagrin if you did," he replied, hastily.
He saw a blush color the smooth cheek, and wished that he had thought before he spoke.
"She is poor and proud. She does not like to be reminded that her aunt is a servant at Lancaster Park," he said, pityingly, to himself.
And he recalled De Vere's intentions with a sensation of generous pleasure. Leonora, with her fair face and her cultured mind, would be lifted by her marriage into the sphere where she rightly belonged. Then she would like England better.
"I have been reading your poet laureate," she said. "I was much struck by these lines:
'Howe'er it be, it seems to me,'Tis only noble to be good:Kind hearts are more than coronets,And simple faith than Norman blood.'
'Howe'er it be, it seems to me,'Tis only noble to be good:Kind hearts are more than coronets,And simple faith than Norman blood.'
I should not have thought an English poet would write that," she went on. "I thought England was too entirely governed by the laws of caste for one of her people to give free utterance to such a dangerous sentiment."
"You must not judge us too hardly," he said, hastily.
Ignoring his feeble protest, she continued: "My papa was English, but he was not of what you call gentle birth, Captain Lancaster. He was the son of a most unlucky tradesman who died and left him nothing but his blessing. So papa ran away to America at barely twenty-one. He went to California to seek his fortune, and he had some good luck and some bad. When he had been there a year he found a gold nugget that was quite a fortune to him. So he married then, and when I was born my pretty young mamma died. After that he lived only for me. We had many ups and downs—all miners have—sometimes we were quite rich, sometimes very poor. But I have been what you call well educated. I know Latin and French and German, and I have studied music. In America, I can move in quite good society, but in your country—" she paused and fixed her clear, grave eyes on his face.
"Well?" he said.
"In England," she said, "I shall, doubtless, be relegated to the same position in society as my aunt, the housekeeper at Lancaster Park. Is it not so?"
He was obliged to confess that it was true.
"Then is it likely I shall love England?" she said. "No; I am quite too American for that. Oh, I dare say you are disgusted at me, Captain Lancaster. You are proud of your descent from a long line of proud ancestry." She looked down at her book and read on, aloud: